True Grit: Success and Persistence of First-Generation Appalachian College Students at a Private Liberal Arts Institution

Abstract

While students have enrolled in college at increased rates since 1996, graduation rates have remained mostly stagnant (NCES, 2022). First-generation Appalachian students, specifically, had lower college completion rates but higher college enrollment rates than their peers (ARC, 2018). Since 2007, researchers have supported the use of non-cognitive behavior traits in predicting college student success rather than traditional cognitive measures and grit has been a consistent success indicator (Bazelais et al., 2017; Duckworth et al., 2007; Kundu, 2014). The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate first-year students to determine the nature of difference, if any, to grit levels on college first-term GPAs while controlling for demographic variables, the predictability of grit scores on first-term GPAs, and the predictive quality of semester-to-semester enrollment on grit scores for all students and specifically first-generation Appalachian students. In the fall 2022 semester, I surveyed 201 first-year students using the Grit-O scale (Duckworth et al., 2007) at a small private liberal arts college in Tennessee. I found there was a significant difference in students’ fall semester GPAs between grit levels while controlling for Appalachian status and high school GPAs. As grit levels increased, the fall semester GPA increased. Grit scores did not predict fall semester GPAs for first-generation Appalachian students specifically but did predict fall semester GPAs for the entire population. Spring enrollment did not predict grit scores for any first-year students. The results of this study can assist institutions in providing necessary resources to students as grit scores could provide the opportunity for interventions early in the students’ collegiate careers to increase retention, ultimately leading to the completion of a bachelor’s degree.